The COVID-19 pandemic

[plam]

Even if it was less severe, it's probably still bad, because bigger number (of infections) times smaller percentage of effects is often still worse than smaller number times bigger number, at the ranges we're looking at here.

Vaccine efficacy against infection probably takes a noticeable hit, against hospitalization still pretty good, and boosters are likely to help, according to the experts.

Pfizer is indeed recommending at least 3 doses of their vaccine to protect against this variant: https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/statu...4892643328

I mean, they're just a little self interested too, so I always take their word with a large grain of salt. Others who I believe more are also saying it though.

Even if it was less severe, it's probably still bad, because bigger number (of infections) times smaller percentage of effects is often still worse than smaller number times bigger number, at the ranges we're looking at here.

Vaccine efficacy against infection probably takes a noticeable hit, against hospitalization still pretty good, and boosters are likely to help, according to the experts.

I mean, this isn't true, it depends entirely on the magnitude of numbers here. The flu is way less common than a cold, but way bigger of a problem.

Still COVID is orders of magnitude worse than a flu, if this variant made it orders of magnitude better, it would still be as bad as the flu, which is bad, and with increased transmissibility, it will be bad.

FWIW...there's also early indications it may hit children much harder. Which is not at all what I wanted to hear.

That's why I said "at the ranges we're looking at". Yes, the cold is mild enough that it doesn't cause wide societal problems. But the range of badness we're likely to see with any variant of COVID is going to be such that wider spread is going to be a big problem.

The data on children I may also not completely believe; there are indications that parents are being super cautious.